


and i dream about home

by pyotr



Category: The Terror (TV 2018), The Terror - Dan Simmons
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen, M/M, frosty fun time 2k19
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-18 13:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyotr/pseuds/pyotr
Summary: collection of fics for frosty fun time 2k19day 3:foster presses his nose to the glass and breathes on the window like he had as a child, crouched as he watches the delicate frost unfurl. he feels.... not peaceful, really, but settled; he feels more himself, thinking about this silly little thing he’d done so often as a child, than he has in a long time.
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir/Lady Silence | Silna, Henry Collins/Harry D. S. Goodsir
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35
Collections: janky franky's frosty fun time 2k19





	1. day 1: snowblind

**Author's Note:**

> im posting late for my own event!

he’d never been so far north before.

it hadn’t struck him, really, until they first started seeing bergs floating on the horizon, like some monoliths of old. it had thrilled him, at first, a strange new sight on a much-anticipated adventure; the white was dazzling, the cold, pale sunlight catching on the ice and half-frozen sea, and he’d thought, _maybe this is what heaven looks like._

and then, it had _hurt._

“i didn’t know,” collins insisted, even as goodsir carefully tied the strip of linen at the back of his head, covering his eyes. they stung, even closed and covered, like a burn. he said as much.

“well, that is essentially what it is, mister collins,” goodsir responded gently, fussing with the knot for a moment before his hands dropped away. collins couldn’t see a thing, but he heard goodsir close by, the rustling of his clothes as he moved and the steady, even tempo of his breathing in the quiet sick bay. “like when you skin burns from spending too long in the sun, except in this case instead of your skin, it was your eyes.”

“wasn’t even looking at the sun,” collins says, quiet because it felt as if the hushed atmosphere necessitated it, his fingers curled over the edge of the seat of the chair he was settled in. he worries at a stray splinter with his fingernail. “even i know that much.”

“it must have been the ice, then,” goodsir says, unperturbed by collins’s morose tone. “did you spend overlong looking at the ice? it works in the same was as light reflecting off of water, except more concentrated; i’ve read that light is caught by crystallized structures in ice and snow and reflected back almost--”

“doctor goodsir,” collins interrupts.

“i’m not a doctor, mister collins, you know that,” goodsir says to him, but he sounds a bit embarrassed, a bit put out at having his tangent interrupted. still, once of his hands comes to rest against collins’s back, against his shoulder blade, the other cupping his elbow as he helps the diver stand. “do you need help back to you bunk? i can’t imagine navigating without sight is an easy task.”

gently, collins shakes him off. “i’ll be just fine, doctor. i’ll get one of the lads to help.”

if he tried hard enough, collins was sure that he could imagine what goodsir looked like in that moment: frowning gently, his displeasure offset with concer, because that’s the type of man that he was: just so earnestly _good_ that collins ached with it, sometimes.

“i’ll help you,” goodsir says, and it’s not a question this time. his hands are back, one cupping collins’s elbow and the other pressed lightly to the small of his back; his fingers curl into collins’s jumper, just slightly.

collins smiles, a tiny quirk of his mouth before it’s gone again. “thank you, doctor.”

“i’m no doctor, mister collins. i really do with you would call me harry.”

“then thank you, harry.”


	2. day 2: two to a sack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> what if, during that scene after morfin bites it, harry's only imagining that silna's there with him

she is not there.

he knows that she is not there- there is no way that she could have been there, she was across camp and under stern guard- but it is still comforting to think that she may have been, that he was not alone. he’d been alone far too often over the past handful of years.

at home, in edinburgh, he’d moved in circles of like-minded men, men who not only listened when he spoke but understood what was being said. he had flourished, then, in comparison to what he was now: a lonely sort of shell poisoning himself from the inside out because there was no other choice. he was empty of tears but not, it seemed, of grief.

it was a comfort to imagine the lady silence there, instead of the way poor morfin’s brains had splattered across the shale, how his jaw hung loose in death, the way that the smell of gunpowder and blood stuck in harry’s nose. he’d seen corpses before, dozens and dozens- he’d cut them open, been elbow-deep in their guts- but there was a special kind of horror in this, in them, in what was to become of them; dead men walking.

she would curl her hand gently over his arm, he thinks, her body pressed along his back- nothing sensual or sexual, no, far from it, just an intimacy gentle enough to ache- her breathing would be slow and even, a counter to his own dry, rapid, silent sobs. she would hold him as the shaking calmed, her palm rubbing comfortingly up and down his arm, her breath gently stirring the curls at his nape.

harry’s breathing slows, unsteady gasps calming to deep inhales. he feels heavy, and tired, but he can pretend that she is there with him, warm and safe, her arms draped around him. he can pretend that he is not alone.

it’s a nice dream, and with it, he settles into sleep.


	3. day 3: fernfrost

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there's so many layers here.
> 
> 1) "foster" is, of course, collins; his full name was henry foster collins, and as his father and one of his younger brothers were both named henry, i figured he'd pull a des voeux and go by his middle name. george mckinley collins was his twin brother.
> 
> 2) this takes place in my in hot water verse, which is just a goodcollins survival au where collins goes with goodsir back to his home in anstruther and lives with him (and goodsir's older sister, jane) at rosebank

as a child, he would blow on windows.

only when it was cold, of course, in the dark of early evening before they were fed their dinner and ushered off to bed. he’d take a moment and stop at a window, cupping his hands around his mouth and pressing his nose against the glass pane, breathing in deep and exhaling all at once.

“what are you doing, henry?” george was the only one that called him that.

and foster would say, “look at this, georgie.”

it was slow, the freezing, but it was beautiful. the tiny, delicate crystals gathered on the outside of the window and caught the flickering candlelight, glittering in the dark. and george would watch a moment, a heartbeat or two, before grinning and doing the same.

he thinks of that now, grown and years removed, how he’d crowd the windows with his brother and watch the creeping frost. polly chirps at him now as he sinks to his knees and peers out the window in front of him, taking in the yard covered in a layer of white, pristine snow, and he shivers despite his layers.

(he doesn’t think that he’ll ever be truly warm again, really, not after all that has happened. the ice has sunk itself into his bones.)

foster presses his nose to the glass and breathes on the window like he had as a child, crouched as he watches the delicate frost unfurl. he feels.... not peaceful, really, but settled; he feels more himself, thinking about this silly little thing he’d done so often as a child, than he has in a long time.

“mister collins?” it’s jane’s voice, and he starts abruptly, pulled back to the present. polly makes a disgruntled noise at being disturbed. “are you alright?”

“quite,” foster answers after a moment, straightening from his crouch and rolling his shoulders awkwardly. he liked jane, respected her, and she’d always treated him well- barely blinked when he had his bad days, and had taken that unnamed _thing_ between himself and harry in stride- but he never quite knew how to behave around her.

“what are you doing? is there something in the back garden?”

“oh, no, i was just,” and here foster pauses his tongue tripping, “just remembering.”

jane levels him with a searching look and foster fidgets under her stare, picking at the hem of the blanket he had pulled over his shoulders. finally she huffs and shakes her head, tucks a strand of curly dark hair behind her ear, but there’s fondness in her expression.

(he doesn’t know what to do with that, either.)

she gives him one last, lingering look before she pats him on the arm and says, “just be sure not to smudge the glass.”


End file.
